Mr Blizzard, who is Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Waveney, said staff had told him that management had talked about the plans to reduce beds in meetings with them.

'£500 a day'

He said: "There's clearly no case for having these bed cuts - the information they're giving me is how full these inpatient wards are.

"Patients have already been sent [to acute beds] as far afield as Basildon, Cambridge and Hackney and they're putting patients in private beds at the astronomical cost of £500 a day.

"They say they want more care in the community, but they've already cut the community teams from two to one in Waveney with half the number of staff."

The Norfolk & Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson said: "It's right to say that our current situation would not support a bed reduction.

"However, if we reach people at an earlier stage of their illness, develop a robust personality disorder strategy, reduce multiple assessments and speed up social care support then we would be able to provide people with some real alternatives to hospital admission.

"We won't close any beds until we can show we no longer need them and we also know that all our patients would prefer to be cared for at home."